A walk in the mountains

This post will be a little different, this is a story of a weekend walk, told through all the photos that I took.

Saturday 13:45 My challenge for today:

 A mountain named Grunten, at 1738m high it is called the gateway to the Alps. Not visible on this photo is the red/white striped monstrosity just shy of the top, that is my goal. The signpost tells me it takes 2.5hrs, I have that amount of time to get up and down, so here goes!

And we're off! The path quickly turns wild, I suspect I may have made a false turn.

 Why hello again Barbed Wire! My suspicions were quickly confirmed, the path was relocated about 10m to the left. (Also I turned my camera halfway through this picture, and quite liked the effect, especially as the barbed wire stayed in focus)

I was initially unsure as to my exact position on the mountain. I was aiming for a path that led very steeply uphill (and then come down a less-steep route) This Winterweg climbed extremely steeply, it's exactly the kind of path I wouldn't want to take in winter! En route I met several crazy people, some of whom thought running down a near-vertical path was a good idea, and even crazier people who thought cycling down was the best plan of action :-O!

 About an hour into the epic climb, I find this awesome view. At this point I contemplating turning round, having found a view, but decide to continue to at least the hut (located about 150m (height) shy of the TV station)

A paraglider appeared! They are common around these parts, but I still think they're photo worthy, even when time is tight.

Exiting the trees, a welcome sight greets me. It's not too far away after all! I'd not even reached the hut yet. The original plan of reaching the red thing was starting to gain traction again.

I reached the hut, but it was so busy that I would have felt like a loner if I'd sat down alone, so I decided to go with my original plan and peg it to the top. Before I continued though, a photo of (what I presume is) the beer lift that goes from this hut to the TV station. Genius bit of engineering

 Nearly there now, look at the fabulous view! 1.5/2.5hrs down, I should be turning round now, but what wonderful scenery. At this point I was above the tree line of Grunten, and was I warm! They have some balmy autumn weather here, I'm sure it was warmer on this day than any of the days we were doing the coast to coast.

TADA!! The TV Station, looking very similar to how it looks from afar. I have succeeded in reaching the point at which I can make a round trip, and take the alternative path down. 

 A better photo of the TV Station, as the last one made it look like I was a below it. Here I found the end of the beer lift.

 Views across to Tirol, so Beautiful! The camera does not adequately capture it.

 Here's another photo that does even less credit to the amazing landscape.

 Onwards! Along a ridge, pretty much the best type of path, views on both sides. At one point I was prancing along the path (which is obviously an entirely normal thing to do when you think no-one's watching) when I looked up to see someone standing in the middle of the path who had clearly seen all of my half-dancing trot downhill. He was waiting for his friend who I can only assume was pinkling in the trees, as I could hear him but not see him. Luckily they were going up hill and I was heading down, so we need never meet again!

 A view of the hut from an alternative view point. 2/2.5hrs down and I found a sign say 1.5hrs to Burgberg (approximately my destination) 'eep!' thought I, better get cracking. So off I trotted, carefully but quickly downhill, not forgetting to take in the ever disappearing view.

 Time for another photo of the beauties. 15minutes into my downhill trot, I found a sign saying 50mins to Burgberg. 15 minutes for a 40 minute walk, not bad thought I. Unfortunately there were signposts for every 5 minutes from then on, and I was walking at approximately the predicted speed until....

...the carpark! Apparently I had parked a little way away from Burgberg. 2hrs35minutes later I had reached my goal and come back again in one piece, with some fantastic views to remember. Next time I'll allow myself a bit more time for a more leisurely walk, but it is fun to try and beat the clock.

I realise on my original blog posts I used to include a song at the end. So for those who have made it thus far here is your treat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvvZ1TEQRB8 One of my all time favourite songs, and topical for those in England right now. Stay safe in the storm! (The connection is wind - a little contrived, but hey any excuse to listen to Disney songs eh?)

Escape from the country

Last Thursday the most magical thing happened, it snowed!!! Anyone who knows me knows I love snow, and I was pleased when the kids, despite having to deal with copious quantities of the white stuff every winter were also quite excited. (M was happily nattering away about Christmas on the way to Kindergarten,  Santa was coming tomorrow, and we had to buy a new Christmas Tree.) Despite quite alot of snow falling from the sky, being October, the temperature wasn't that cold so there was only about a cm at most on the ground here. Nevertheless M got fully decked out in snow trousers, jacket, boots, gloves and hat (although no scarf to my surprise, I think the coats are warm enough here) to walk the 5 minutes to Kindergarten. He clearly hasn't had a huge deal of experience with snow as his idea of fun was to get me to make a snowball and then he would carry it very carefully for a little bit at which point he'd throw it onto the road and stamp on it. The cycle would then repeat with another snowball. No snowmen and no snowball fights meant a surprisingly speedy walk to Kindergarten and no wet Becca! (I didn't have the full snow gear on) The Grandma picked M up from Kindergarten and she said it was manic there, as the kids were let loose in the snow, so maybe next time it snows I won't be so lucky!
By the afternoon the snow had melted in the valley and there was blue sky once more. Snow covered mountains on a sunny day are beautiful (pictures will be on facebook at some point). Today was warm enough to wear a T-shirt outside so the snow is rapidly depleting. The snow has resulted in a mysterious dissapearance of the animals. I no longer have cows outside my window, and the sheep enroute to kindergarten have gone too, sad times.
One thing that amused me greatly was despite all their talk of being able to deal with snow (and to be fair to them, Altstadten worked fine) the main news on the radio was that it had snowed, and in a certain region schools and kindergartens were shut and people were advised not to travel. Everyone is at the mercy of weather whether they're used to it or not!

Leaving the snowy scenery behind I hopped on a train to Munich this weekend. It was nice visiting a new city and fantastic to catch up with Beatrice and co but there were just so many people! On Saturday there were various demonstrations going on in the city centre and all the usual city trappings, and then on Sunday there was some sort of Marathon which meant even more people, and some accompanying music too :-) I hope to get another chance to visit this bustling city, but I was glad to return to the peace and quiet of the back of beyond. However tonight a farmer have decided to spray the fields at 9pm which means my room stinks of manure just before bed, so there are downsides to the countryside!

And for those still reading, here's some bonus material:

- L came to tell me that M was in my room and was just about to go back to tell him he wasn't allowed when I heard 'REBECCCAAA!' 'REEEEBBEEECCAAA' from upstairs and some very speedy footsteps down the stairs. I asked what was wrong and he said something about my bed (A 3 year old speaking fast german is not the easiest thing to understand) I then remembered that I'd stripped the bed and not got round to making it, a concept that is very hard for a 3yo to understand! Natural progression is that L and M wanted to help make the bed. It started well but ended with M in tears having bumped his head and L inside the duvet cover. Ah well, at least the thought was there!

- Playing in the street when I turned around to see a herd of cows casually strolling past.

- Talking of animals. A few days after the sheep arrived, I noticed they'd moved to the field next to us. 'That's nice' thought I 'more animals to play with' It wasn't long before they were being herded away, turns out they hadn't moved, rather had escaped to greener pastures! The fences here are pretty flimsy, we've had goats in the garden before now, much to M's delight.

- Enroute to Kindergarten there is a junction at which we can go either right or straight ahead. I ask M which way he wants to go and he shouts 'straight ahead' then merrily turns right. He either doesn't quite understand the concept of directions, or my german accent needs to improve!

Broken bones, glass and sign times

Eventful would be a good adjective to describe this week. Monday was a bit of a stress because Spaghetti takes aaages to cook and we ended up with only 10 minutes to eat because L had a Krakon lesson (the box drum thing, don’t know what it’s called auf Englisch) Minor stress there, compounded by L telling me how to cook spaghetti and M wanting to also cook spaghetti. Solution involved giving them a mug of warm water into which one piece of spaghetti in many parts was placed to ‘cook’. L seemed genuinely surprised when it remained raw (this is the 7 year old!) Lunch eaten, music played we returned home to find the aunty+kid visiting the Oma next door. Happy afternoon spent there ended up with pretty much the entire extended family in Oma’s small apartment.

Tuesday was not so happy. L managed to break his collar bone playing football, sad times. It’s his first broken bone. He now gets to wear a sort of rucksack strap which he’s quite proud of, but took a while to understand the ‘you have to keep your shoulder still’ thing. On Wednesday I had to pick him up from school (he can’t carry his school rucksack) and after proudly informing me that he had played some football (eek!) he then asked me where the car was. It’s an incredibly short walk, I’d come on foot, L wasn’t impressed. Making it home with only a short diversion over a fence to collect conkers (eek!), he then had a minor tantrum after the dad suggested I took M swimming so L could have some peace to chill on the sofa and watch films. He wanted to go too.... In the end M and I had a great time swimming and L had a great time watching films (aside from sore collar bone ofc)

Thursday was Feiertag, a national holiday to celebrate the reunification of Germany. Thankfully this coincided with a glorious sunny day. After a leisurely breakfast and lots of reading (a tale of 2 cities is starting to make sense) I went for a short cycle ride before coming back in time for roast dinner lunch, mmm. I then went off on another wandern, this time driving up a pass and parking at the top. It is a ski-resort and very bizarre to see in summer time, almost creepy. A lovely walk to 2 mountain tops gave me fantastic views of the alps, although in the foreground was the epic skiresort car park and lots of still skiilifts. Although it was hard work driving up the pass, it was worth it driving down, so much fun (and safe I promise!)

Friday should have been noneventful. The mum went to work very early and came back just after lunchtime which was nice. But there was emergency at work so she had to leave again, oh well. Over the course of the afternoon I ended up with no less than 6 children. Children are good at playing with each other so this was mostly stressfree, aside from when they decided that the train station was a good place to play (they were trying to convince M that his favourite person (his 11yo cousin) was leaving to go to Mannheim) They succeeded in making him cry, oops, but it wasn’t too long before they were back in the garden playing one-handed Kirsche gegessen (a throw and catch game) This evening the mum briefly reappeared to cook and eat before leaving; turns out the emergency involved someone punching someone a robbery (I didn't understand the german word initially) so now she’s spent the entire evening talking to the police. In all this coming and going I got the time of the language course wrong by an hour, so I missed my weekly opportunity to speak to real-life English people, sad times.

An eventful week all round. And I also had one of my more embarrassing moments in life. On Wednesday I went along to the young adults house group, and whilst saying goodbye my bag fell off my shoulder and knocked a wine glass off the table which smashed in 2. Already mildly embarrassing but then I picked up the wine glass pieces and placed them on the table. As I turned away one piece rolled off the table and smashed into smithereens, oopsy! Well at least in church you’re supposed to not be perfect...

More Anecdotes for those who need more procrastination material

Walking on Thursday I left the first mountain and there was a signpost that said 1 ¼ hrs to Riegberg, about 10 minutes later the next signpost said 1 ½ hours to Riegberg (“odd,” thought I, “I must have misread the first one”) then 10 minutes later the next signpost said 1 ¾ hrs to Riegberg. At this point I did double check that I was following the signs correctly and I was indeed heading to Riegberg. The next 2 signposts (also about 10 minutes apart) said 1 hour and 30minutes respectively. From the first sign post it took me about an hour. What went into the mind of those signpost makers I don’t know. On the previous walk I had been able to follow the signpost times as if they were a clock (after multiplying by 2/3 as they’re designed for slow walkers)

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Upon leaving the swimming pool I can't seem to locate where to put my key-band-thing. Eventually the reception lady takes it and tells me that the door through which I left wasn't open for me, rather for those with small children. I then had to collect M (who was standing by the reception desk, too small to be seen) and leave without seeming too rude!

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Another M story; en route to Kindergarten M stops to have a nice chat with the sheep. He then decides he wants his Eisbar hat so starts heading back home. As he has a scooter and I’m on foot I then have to leg it down the road to stop him and persuade him that he can make it all the way to Kindergarten without his Eisbar hat and I’ll bring it with me later. Oh the trials of the 5 minute walk to Kindergarten! At least he is now more practised with cycling, so falls and crashes are much more infrequent. That said he has now mastered the art of turning, so we did have about 5 minutes of him circling at one point in the road, whilst L was having a strop that he wasn’t allowed to cycle (broken collar bone and all that jazz)

Anyhoo I’ve waffled on for long enough. Happy procrastination y’all!